Detroit Riots

It was on this night in 1967 that an uprising began in Detroit. An all-white squadron of police officers decided to raid an unlicensed after hours bar in a black neighborhood where there was a party to welcome home two recent veterans of the Vietnam War. The police stormed the bar, rounded up and arrested 85 black men and began loading them into vans.

That touched off the 12th Street Riot, which raged for five days, though there was a long background of what you might expect from today -- a 97% white police force brutalizing black citizens.

After the DPD left, the crowd began looting an adjacent clothing store. Shortly thereafter, full-scale looting began throughout the neighborhood. The Michigan State Police, Wayne County Sheriff's Department, and the Michigan Army National Guard were alerted, but because it was Sunday, it took hours for Police Commissioner Ray Girardin to assemble sufficient manpower. Meanwhile, witnesses described seeing a "carnival atmosphere" on 12th Street. The DPD, inadequate in number and wrongly believing that the rioting would soon expire, just stood there and watched.

The local news media initially avoided reporting on the disturbance so as not to inspire copy-cat violence, but the rioting started to expand to other parts of the city, including looting of retail and grocery stores elsewhere. By Sunday afternoon, news had spread, and people attending events such as a Fox Theater Motown revue and Detroit Tigers baseball game were warned to avoid certain areas of the city. Motown's Martha Reeves was on stage at the Fox, singing "Jimmy Mack," and was asked to ask people to leave quietly, as there was trouble outside. After the game, Tigers left fielder Willie Horton, a Detroit resident who had grown up not far from 12th Street, drove to the riot area and stood on a car in the middle of the crowd (see the photo below). Despite Horton's impassioned pleas, he could not calm the crowd.

Michigan Governor George Romney and President Lyndon B. Johnson initially disagreed about the legality of sending in federal troops. Johnson said he could not send federal troops in without Romney's declaring a "state of insurrection", to meet compliance with the Insurrection Act.

Partisan political issues complicated decisions. George Romney was expected to run for the Republican presidential nomination in 1968, and President Johnson, a Democrat, did not want to commit troops solely on Romney's direction. Added to this was Mayor Jerome Cavanagh's own political and personal clash with Romney. Cavanagh, a young Irish Catholic Democrat who had cultivated harmonious relations with black leaders, both inside and outside the city, was initially reluctant to ask Romney, a Republican, for assistance.

The violence escalated throughout Monday, resulting in some 483 fires, 231 incidents reported per hour, and 1,800 arrests. Looting and arson were widespread. Black-owned businesses were not spared. One of the first stores looted in Detroit was Hardy's drug store, owned by blacks and known for filling prescriptions on credit. Detroit's leading black-owned women's clothing store was burned, as was one of the city's best-loved black restaurants. In the wake of the riots, a black merchant said, "you were going to get looted no matter what color you were."

Shortly before midnight on Monday, July 24, President Johnson authorized the use of federal troops in compliance with the Insurrection Act of 1807, which authorizes the President to call in armed forces to fight an insurrection in any state against the government. The United States Army's 82nd Airborne Division and 101st Airborne Division had earlier been positioned at nearby Selfridge Air Force Base in suburban Macomb County. Starting at 1:30 on Tuesday, July 25, some 8,000 Michigan Army National Guardsmen were deployed to quell the disorder. Later, their number would be augmented with 4,700 paratroopers from both the 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions, arriving on tanks, and 360 Michigan State Police officers.

Although only 26 of the over 7,000 arrests involved snipers, and not one person accused of sniping was successfully prosecuted, the fear of snipers precipitated many police searches, most notably the Algiers Motel Incident.

The Algiers Motel was a black owned business with a reputation for drugs and prostitution. Police and National Guardsmen were protecting the Great Lakes Mutual Life Insurance building one block north. After midnight, shots were heard in the vicinity of the Algiers. A large contingent of Detroit police officers, State Troopers, and Guardsmen were ordered to investigate. They observed people in the windows of the Algiers' annex building, and consequently shot out those windows and stormed the building through its three entrances.

According to testimony, three of the black teens and two white women were listening to music in a third-floor room of the annex. Cooper pulled out a starter pistol and shot multiple blanks in the air, drawing return fire from the various authorities outside. Alarmed and frightened, the occupants fled to other rooms as law enforcement personnel rushed into the annex.

Carl Cooper was the first youth shot to death in the incident. Cooper had been in a third-floor room but his dead body was found in a first-floor room. He was killed by law enforcement personnel when they first entered the building: according to later testimony, he may have been mistaken for an armed rioter. Alternatively, several police officers later testified that Cooper was already dead when they entered the building. The shooting was never fully explained and no one was ever arrested for Cooper's death.

The occupants of the motel's annex were then rounded up in the first-floor hallway and lined up against the wall. The officers present beat them, threatening to kill them unless they told the officers who had the gun and was sniping from the motel. The two 18-year-old white women, Juli Hysell and Karen Malloy, were both forcibly stripped naked and each harangued as "nigger lovers." Several of the men were shown a knife on the floor and told to pick it up, so they could be killed in "self-defense". In turn, each of the black youths in line was taken into rooms and intimidated with threats or gunshots and told to stay still and quiet or be killed. Aubrey Pollard was taken to room A-3 by Officer Ronald August. August would later admit to Pollard's killing, stating it was in self-defense. A spent cartridge found next to Pollard was a .300 Savage, a type used for sporting rifles, and not issued to police officers. Pollard had extensive injuries to his head. Witnesses described how he had been beaten on the head with a rifle, with force enough to break the rifle.

The officers did not report the deaths to the Detroit Police Homicide Bureau as required. The next day, on July 26, 1967, Charles Hendrix, whose security firm provided security for the Algiers, found the bodies in the annex and reported the deaths to the Wayne County Morgue, which then called the Detroit Police Homicide Bureau.

August was eventually tried, but the judge in the case instructed the jury that their only choices were to convict of first degree murder or acquit. They were not allowed to convict on lesser charges such as manslaughter. August was acquitted.

The National Guardsmen fired off more than 150,000 bullets over the course of the riot. Citizens were terrorized, beaten, and murdered, as depicted in the movie Detroit (2017), based on the recollections of witnesses to the Algiers Motel Incident.

Forty-three people were killed and whole blocks of the city went up in flames. After the riots, many of the white residents of the city moved to the suburbs in “white flight.” Detroit became one of the poorest cities in America.

I was 8 years old at the time and lived in Warren, a suburb of Detroit. Detroit is a weird place, a metro area with cities inside of other cities. Warren was inside Detroit, and Center Line is entirely contained within Warren. We lived on Essex Street, just off Van Dyke, and my Dad was a press operator for the Detroit News. He had to go down in the middle of it every night. We continued to go to school, but with a 4:00 curfew that allowed just enough time for everyone to get home. I don't remember very much, just hearing about the arrival of the Black Panthers, and having my 8th birthday shut up inside the house with no friends. I think that was about the time my Dad started looking for jobs in Chattanooga. We moved back to Georgia the following year.

I got to see one game of the 1968 Tigers, the year they won the Series. I saw Al Kaline hit a home run and Willie Horton make an amazing catch with his back to the ball. I became a huge fan of both.

And then we were gone.